"Artist Augustina Woodgate goes “beyond skin” with her colorfully woven tapestries created from re-purposed plush dolls. Each piece in her “Skin Rug” series is a hand-sewn and designed rug made from recycled stuffed animal “skins”.

The process starts with the memory of the love imbued into each stuffed animal when they are in the hands of their owners. The rugs not only reference the personal histories of the toy’s owners, but investigate the rug as an object that organizes and displays memories and lineages. Woodgate is particularly drawn to the specific meanings in the arrangement of rug designs, and how the different histories belonging to each rug represent stories of the past and ways of tracing archetypes in physical and material forms. Woodgate sees the rug as an object of having the power to centralize the living space into pattern, operating beyond utility to depict the spiritual and mental world in woven form."

"raquel paiewonsky of the dominican republic is exhibiting her installation 'mutants' in the latin american pavilion at the biennale. unknown worlds populated by rare species and different races make their appearance

"Maybe you've seen these wheat paste faces grinning out at you as you grab a Red Eye or pass a doorway. You're not the only Chicagoan to take notice. There is an entire Flickr group dedicated to capturing and collecting the work of this prolific graffiti artist and speculating on his identity. "I dig the the goons. They are like off-brand, Third World Sesame Street-like characters from a show that you could only pick up on a scrambled channel." -- jugheadjones, via Flickr Now if only a crafty Etsy seller would turn these drawings into stuffed animals."

"Renate Müller's leather and jute animals were designed in the early 1970s for H. Josef Leven, a manufacturer of therapeutic and developmental toys for the disabled. Success was short lived, the parent company was nationalized and rights to the toys were lost. In 1991 Renate Müller regained control of the rights to her own designs. Since then, she's been running a bed and breakfast and filling orders for animals and toys for therapeutic zoos — mainly for kindergartens and hospitals in (surprise) Japan."

"The result: a real-time Twittering, talking, live-streaming social media phenomenon. I worked with my team at the Drexel Music and Entertainment Technology Lab to develop Teddy’s text-to-speech software."

"Surely the robot hiding in the bear's clothing, vestimentis ursum, is impressive. So: armed with my childish curiousity and the spurious excuse of 'product design research,' I set out to discover what, exactly, these creatures are hiding."

"Is this another one of those Gloria Caranica situations where the actual designer gets written out by her male collaborators?...Girard saw Neuhart's dolls, ordered 2,000 of them...What that has to do with Argentina is a mysterioso grande to me."

"The Dutch Mediamatic centre is known for connecting the physical world with the digital. So, a couple of weeks ago, they held a Hybrid Toys Workshop to teach people how to make physical toys with digital and/or networked components."

"Around 1969 and into the 70's Renata Mueller [that Müller, with an umlaut, btw] designed a collection of therapeutic toys with a former instructor, Helene Haeusler, for the venerable German teddy bear manufacturer, H. Josef Leven."

"Bears, is a series of portraits of the most unusual sort: ordinary teddy bears that have been turned inside out and restuffed. Each animal's appearance is determined by the necessities of the manufacturing process. Simple patterns and devices never meant

Plushie...allows nonprofessionals (even those who are not able to draw "appropriately" a 2D pattern) to design their own original plush toys...constructs 2D patterns and applies simple physical simulation to it on the fly during 3D modeling."

"The goods: The curators invited contemporary artists to pick up a toy in their collection and create an art piece starring the toy. The result is that an exhibition which you'd expect to be for the Under 12 Only is a huge hit with adults."

"The anthropomorphic sculptures explore the possibilities of genetic deviation and ponder society's fears and reluctant fascinations with the unexplained while offering a look at the inconceivable yet probable devolution of man"

"'Dustbunnies' is a small colony of digital dust balls that scan the space in search of crumbs of lost thoughts, emotions and dreams. They are a group of LoFi amoeba addicted to a past caught in flakes of skin and hair, in dust and in dirt."

"Yoshiaki Kaihatsu playfully tears apart Adidas tracksuits - to sew cute little pets out of them for his GIFT project that was exhibited this summer at Berlin’s Galerie Tristesse. A little bit of fashion deconstructed, please!"

"What’s unusual about Domo, however, is that he arrived in the U.S. retail marketplace well ahead of his debut on American television. He’s on T-shirts and accessories at Hot Topic, greeting cards at many Barnes & Noble locations and grocery stores an

"Steak Zombies' field of work embraces formats such as graphic characters, plush-dolls and accessories, stage-outfits and theatre costumes as well as character- based real-life-costumes. In a series of Live-Sewing and Clothes Customizing Performances in c

"Introducing chumby, a compact device that can act like a clock radio, but is way more flexible and fun. It uses the wireless internet connection you already have to fetch cool stuff from the web: music, the latest news, box scores, animations, celebrity